Is the Democratic party becoming too extreme?

[SN2903]

https://www.vox.com/2019/1/18/18185829/womens-march-2019-dnc-tamika-mallory-view

No word from national leadership denouncing this woman and her failure to denounce Louis Farrakhan a known anti-semite.
Cortez, Tlaib and the new socialist left clearly hate Israel and this is not being talked about.

Although Farrakhan is absolutely an anti-Semite, hating Israel is not Antisemitism.

Hating Israel is the definition of anti-semitism. Please.

It seems that you are in favor of giving Israel a blank check to mistreat non-Jews. That's unacceptable.

Not a blank check. No I am not for that, but they are our only true ally in the middle East .Trump has stood by them . Obama did not.

[RFayette]

Moreover, if the implication is that Trump=Crazy party=Success, then what of the reverse? Where exactly would the Dems have performed better in the 2018 Senate against a less Trumpy president? Democrats losing heavily Republican seats to the GOP and nearly winning freaking Texas does not make Trump some sort of big electoral success story.

One could argue that certain Dem Senate incumbents losing in FL/ND/IN was due to Trump's intentionally making the races a referendum on himself [of course, this likely did damage in the House and may have hurt in NV/AZ, so it hardly is an unequivocally good strategy].   It isn't implausible to see people like Nelson and Donnelly (and maybe even McCaskill/Heitkamp) holding on under a different GOP President, but the trend toward incumbency mattering less may have marched on anyways regardless of who the President was. 

[Sirius_]

Not quite yet but it's going that direction. And my god can we have a thread without useless centrist bashing?

[Sirius_]

You're already seeing all the think pieces where they're ripping the shreds almost all the prospective Dem candidates over the tiniest ideological inconsistency. I'm getting the sneaking feeling that a bunch of people are going to sit at home and pout if they don't think the Dem candidate is 100% perfect and give this thing to Trump again. 

The left's current activism community is more interested in venting and getting it off their chest than in being effective.

The left's activism just helped flip 40 house seats. Stop being dense.

I don't believe that most of the swing/r leaning district flips came from the progressive wing.

[Blair]

You're already seeing all the think pieces where they're ripping the shreds almost all the prospective Dem candidates over the tiniest ideological inconsistency. I'm getting the sneaking feeling that a bunch of people are going to sit at home and pout if they don't think the Dem candidate is 100% perfect and give this thing to Trump again. 

The left's current activism community is more interested in venting and getting it off their chest than in being effective.

The left's activism just helped flip 40 house seats. Stop being dense.

I don't believe that most of the swing/r leaning district flips came from the progressive wing.

No, the members were a mix of ideologies but a fair bit of money that was pumped into campaigns+DSCC and all the other various bodies was clearly from people are progressives.

[Tartarus Sauce]

The Democratic Party is becoming a communist left wing extremist party. The Republican Party is giving in and moving towards the center. There is no longer a major right wing part present in the United States.

Lol what a weird reality you live in.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Anyway, this entire thread predictably turned into a sh!tshow. There is a debate to be had on whether Democrats are too extreme, whether the head figures of Women’s March make for terrible leadership, the ever-present concerns of anti-semitism and Israel, and so on and so forth. Of course, OP didn’t want a debate, he wanted half a dozen different negatively charged sound bites to shotgun out into the ether so he could engage in partisan hackery. The mess that’s been left in his wake displays how problematic answering questions like the one posed in the thread title can be, especially when handled in such an irresponsible manner.

[AtorBoltox]

A party that can't even commit to proper universal health care is in no way 'extreme'

[Middle-aged Europe]

No, they don't.

The Republican Party has become too extreme however.... that is sometime during the 1990s or 2000s.

[RINO Tom]

Statistically speaking, the Democrats have absolutely become significantly more left-wing over the past several years. However, "too extreme" is rather subjective: one person's definition of extreme leftism may be another's definition of moderation, as we've seen throughout this thread.

I will say that I'm rather uncomfortable with the direction that the party is heading in regarding fiscal issues. Every major 2020 candidate so far with the exception of John Delaney supports Sanders 2016 policies like government healthcare and $15 minimum wage, and some support even further left policies like Gillibrand's jobs guarantee or the absolutely ridiculous universal basic income proposal by Yang. I'm not exactly sure why every Democrat in the party is rushing to capture votes from the guy who lost the 2016 primary by 12 points rather than the candidate who actually won, but what do I know?

Despite this, however, I won't label the Democratic Party as "too extreme" because it is ultimately a big tent party with many perspectives to offer, which is something that I can't say at all for the far-right wing GOP anymore. If sensible Democrats - the Michael Bennet/John Hickenlooper/Abby Finkenauer types who actually write pragmatic and realistic policies rather than spouting off useless platitudes - no longer have a voice in the party some time in the future, then we can talk about "too extreme."

I think you're making the delusional mistake of thinking that A) Clinton won the nomination because there was this huge cohort of Democratic primary voters who just wouldn't tolerate Sanders' "far left" economic ideas (very different from simply adopting "gotcha!" talking points once the heat of the campaign was on) and B) a huge chunk of Clinton voters don't AGREE with a leftward push on economic matters for the party but simply preferred Hillary based on other things.  Hillary Clinton's nomination was not some huge victory for "fiscal DLCers," it was a straight-up victory for *Hillary Clinton*, led by several factions of the Democratic Party.  Polls don't show a huge divide between Sanders and Clinton voters on the issues, after all.

[Leinad]

Trump if anything is slightly left of center on economic issues.  He favors infrastructure,  tariffs and renogiating trade deals. Bush was certainly to the right of him across the board. It is Trumps demeanor that causes the hyperbole among the left. Hes basically a Democrat 30 or 40 years ago who is nationalistic on immigration .

Oh my god you're right! Trump supports the Strong Progressive Stance of "not letting bridges ing fall down!"

I agree with you that most of it is his demeanor and rhetoric (which, let's be real, is ING BATSH!T INSANE, so, like, there's that...) but Trump and/or Republicans in general often do take some...out-there policy stances. Democrats are pretty much neoliberals who, like, kinda-sorta want the sick and homeless to not die and recently figured out The Gays are people and The Transes might be people but it's hard to tell but, like, they still dig that Wall Street $$$$$ more but it's cool because they're in the streets using that money to protest the bourgeois and help the po--no wait they're just like other rich people, trying to sell their books and fund campaigns, so...kinda not "extreme leftists," eh?

Answer to the question: if you go by standards of other countries, hell no, the Democrats are arguably center-right more than center-left. If you go by standards of the Cult of Reagan and fierce "anti-communism" that today's politicians grew up in (and we've all grown up in an environment influenced by it) then OH MY GOD THE PINKOS HAVE INVADED WASHINGTON OHMYGODOHMYGOD GET THE NUUUUUUUKES!!!!!!!!!!

[Leinad]

You can't even openly oppose same-sex marriage today without being called a homophobic bigot anymore!

Oh my god you can't oppose someone's equal legal status without people thinking you're wrong for that?

Wow what has this world come to I literally can't even...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

no

[RINO Tom]

It's actually pretty well-researched that Democrats are becoming more radicalized.  On a bell curve graph, Democrats continue to flatten and spread between far-left and center-left, where as Republicans tend to cluster around the center-right.  The below Pew research study shows what I'm talking about.  I've seen other studies like it, but I'm feeling pretty lazy at 6 in the morning.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

Trump is a factor that's creating an extreme reaction, but it's also the media's portrayal and hyperbole regarding Trump that is adding to radicalization.  Trump isn't exactly far-right, but the left utilizes him as a symbol of far-right extremism.  Mostly due to Trump's unapologetic stance to PC culture. It's not like the far-right is noticeably more active than it was during Bush or Obama.  There's more of a difference between Bush and Obama than Obama and Trump as far as far-right extremism.  And sure, opinion polls indicate that people feel it's gotten worse, but the statistics just don't jive with opinions.

Trump if anything is slightly left of center on economic issues.  He favors infrastructure,  tariffs and renogiating trade deals. Bush was certainly to the right of him across the board. It is Trumps demeanor that causes the hyperbole among the left. Hes basically a Democrat 30 or 40 years ago who is nationalistic on immigration .

Oh my God, how did I miss this hot take?  Absolutely not, LOL.

[Big Abraham]

It's actually pretty well-researched that Democrats are becoming more radicalized.  On a bell curve graph, Democrats continue to flatten and spread between far-left and center-left, where as Republicans tend to cluster around the center-right.  The below Pew research study shows what I'm talking about.  I've seen other studies like it, but I'm feeling pretty lazy at 6 in the morning.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/pew-research-center-study-shows-that-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

Trump is a factor that's creating an extreme reaction, but it's also the media's portrayal and hyperbole regarding Trump that is adding to radicalization.  Trump isn't exactly far-right, but the left utilizes him as a symbol of far-right extremism.  Mostly due to Trump's unapologetic stance to PC culture. It's not like the far-right is noticeably more active than it was during Bush or Obama.  There's more of a difference between Bush and Obama than Obama and Trump as far as far-right extremism.  And sure, opinion polls indicate that people feel it's gotten worse, but the statistics just don't jive with opinions.

Trump if anything is slightly left of center on economic issues.  He favors infrastructure,  tariffs and renogiating trade deals. Bush was certainly to the right of him across the board. It is Trumps demeanor that causes the hyperbole among the left. Hes basically a Democrat 30 or 40 years ago who is nationalistic on immigration .

Oh my God, how did I miss this hot take?  Absolutely not, LOL.

Seriously. Tariffs aren't even a "centre-left" idea. High protective tariffs have always been favoured by the business class, of advantage to no one except agricultural interests and producers of foodstuffs and other raw materials.

[GoTfan]

The Democratic Party is becoming a communist left wing extremist party. The Republican Party is giving in and moving towards the center. There is no longer a major right wing part present in the United States.

Could you please elaborate on this. I'm really curious about the way you've reached these conclusions.

The Democratic Party has recently proposed socialist "Medicare for All", abolishing ICE, and additional taxes on the wealthy. They have support a Social Justice movement and defends the censorship by tech giants. They did not compromise at all during the government shutdown over Trump's wall. He was even willing to give them DACA and only build the wall in some places. For the most part, the Republican Party has given up on stopping the LGBT movements, Fundamentalism, capital punishment, and protecting Second Amendment rights. A true right-wing Republican Party would have too hard of a battle to fight in the leftist mob rule of today. Social conservatism and family values are being rejected today more than ever before due to aggressive push against these values by the Democrats. You can't even openly oppose same-sex marriage today without being called a homophobic bigot anymore! In many cases you may even get death threats by being socially conservative. Regardless, of what you all believe it is not appropriate to wish death or harm to people you disagree with. My viewpoints are solidly ring-wing and that's not changing anytime soon. It doesn't matter that we all have completely different political views. What matters is that we be civil to one another.

If universal healthcare is socialist, then that makes most of the first world socialist. I guarantee you that Australia is not a socialist country.

Trump's f***ing wall is the single most pointless idea I've ever heard. If he were serious about it, it would've been his 100 days priority and wouldn't wait until after the midterms to do it.

Yes, of course we need to stop dah evul LGBTz b4 dey take ovah da world!

Also, the Republican Party abandoning the Second Amendment? That's just . . . if you believe that, then you haven't been paying attention.

[Dillon]

No,  was formally a right wing party, and only recently had it become more internationally centrist. The positions supported by the progressives are the positions supported by the vast majority of Americans

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Yeah, the Democratic Party has moved sharply to the left over the past decade.
Many positions which were once limited to the most progressive wing of the party are now common among democratic politicians : Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage (in 2012 Obama called for a $11 minimum wage), but this shift is not limited to economical and health care issues, on issues like immigration and gun control the Democratic Party has become more homogenous and more progressive and that’s why you have a shutdown, for democrats the concept of borders has become a fascist or a racist concept and as they are pretty logical they will be opposed to any proposition which could restrict immigration to the US